Filed under: OS, Rumors, Software, WWDC, Leopard
All the little things: a WWDC 2006 tidbits roundup
With big events and announcements like yesterday's WWDC, there's always a few bits and pieces that manage to fall through the cracks. New product details as well as features and screenshots of new Mac OS X functionality are prime examples, and these bits and pieces are now starting to trickle in. Instead of posting each minor piece of info, we figured it would be better to simply round them all up together, so here we go with the first WWDC 2006 tidbits roundup post of what we've found so far:
- In the Spaces video preview at Apple's new Mac OS X site, you can clearly make out a new RSS sidebar item in Mail.app (pictured). This isn't in the dedicated Mail.app preview section and wasn't mentioned on stage. Woops. [UPDATE: Commenter David is right: this RSS feature is mentioned lower on Mail.app's preview page, but it isn't featured at all in the demo video. Strange.]
- In a screenshot of the Dock, a folder on the right side of the divider has a black triangle underneath it, denoting the same 'yes, it's running' UI feedback that applications have.
- iChat is also featured with a new UI sans brushed metal (pictured on left). If it's already been stripped from iChat, could brushed metal have gone the way of the PowerMac G5 for the rest of Leopard?
- The Mac Pros are apparently the first (and only?) Intel Mac to not include Front Row and an Apple Remote. This also means (to our knowledge) they don't have an IR port either.
Thanks to everyone who sent these in
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
eric vicenti said 3:07PM on 8-08-2006
Brushed metal is still in safari. But it will be nice to see it out of ichat. Now I'm switching back from adium.
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David said 3:10PM on 8-08-2006
You say: This isn't in the dedicated Mail.app preview section and wasn't mentioned on stage. Woops.
Actually it is written very clearly in Mail.app preview at the bottom of the page:
Stop the presses
Thanks to new support for RSS in Leopard Mail, you’ll never miss another article. All the news you’re most interested in is delivered right to you. Just subscribe to an RSS feed in Mail and you’ll know the moment an article hits the wire. Even better, that same article will be waiting in your inbox. Quickly scan headlines and jump between feeds via the streamlined interface. And sorting your news is easy, too. Just set up a Smart Mailbox using search terms that pique your interest and Mail dynamically updates it when relevant articles are posted to your subscribed feeds.
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Graham Stevens said 3:12PM on 8-08-2006
hmm..
RSS feeds in Mail.. I am not sure about this one. Perhaps Apple sees mail as a kind of all in one personal organiser... mail, notes, to do, RSS, ical??? More in the style of ..entourage (YUCK!!).
Plus does anyone else feel that the beta spaces app could be a stepping stone to running windows as one of the 'spaces'. I realise the complexities but it would be very cool. Presumibly if Apple don't do this you could do it with Parallels as one of the spaces....
Roll on Jan 07....
Graham
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Piotr Malecki said 3:22PM on 8-08-2006
Another major thing that was not mentioned in the WWDC keynote but is in the iChat video on the Leopard preview site is the fact that from iChat you can invite someone to share your desktop where both of you have control over computer using your own keyboard and mouse but see the same screen.
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Pete said 3:22PM on 8-08-2006
I hope they do keep brushed metal. It makes it easier to pick apps out when you have many open and use exposé. As long as the apps all behave the same, I'm not concerned about them having different skins.
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Dmitry said 3:25PM on 8-08-2006
As for the Spaces, I would really love if Apple could add the "Smack" functionality to the laptops for toggling between the Spaces. We know it can be done and I am sure these guys could do it in style.
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Lee said 3:34PM on 8-08-2006
Has anybody taken a look at the screenshot of OS X Leopard Server on the Apple Press site? There's definitely some weirdness in that image... almost like it's not a screenshot at all. Parts of it look like composed vector images. Maybe part of the UI scaling feature that's rumored to be coming?
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Joshua Ochs said 3:41PM on 8-08-2006
Press images usually use vector elements so they look better when printed on high-resolution printers or when enlarged.
Sorry, has nothing to do with a resolution-independent interface (yet).
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Ryan said 3:44PM on 8-08-2006
I'm not sure if this is new or has to do with the application launcher, but somewhere I saw the new translucent-background Spotlight icon in the dock as if it was an app.
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Query said 3:45PM on 8-08-2006
"The Mac Pros are apparently the first (and only?) Intel Mac to not include Front Row and an Apple Remote."
Education iMac?
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Brendan said 3:49PM on 8-08-2006
"The Mac Pros are apparently the first (and only?) Intel Mac to not include Front Row and an Apple Remote. This also means (to our knowledge) they don't have an IR port either."
What the hell would the Mac Pro have an IR sensor for, when they mostly spend their time hiding under a desk? The new cinema displays will have that stuff, duh??
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cavemonkey50 said 3:50PM on 8-08-2006
I'm wondering if the Mac Pros don't have Front Row and an IR port because the new Cinema Displays will have that built in. Maybe if a Cinema Display is connected Front Row will activate.
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Jason said 3:52PM on 8-08-2006
Speaking of unannounced strangeness, am I the only one confused by the presence of a spotlight dock icon in the 'iChat' video? Check it out during the portion of the video that demonstrates screen sharing (with the green background).
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Todd Plants said 4:01PM on 8-08-2006
Good catch on the spotlight dock icon. Perhaps unannounced improvements to spotlight / finder?
Also - the icon immediately to the right of the spotlight icon seems unfamiliar. Can anyone confirm?
Further - who is this Oliver guy and how did he get such an advanced build!? :)
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Vin said 4:05PM on 8-08-2006
Thats a very good find.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/ichat.html
Also to note that on the green shared desktop a 'Spaces' icon is sitting on the dock but when they switch back its gone. Probably demoing between a Tiger OS and a dev copy of Leopard is my guess.
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Jason said 4:11PM on 8-08-2006
Todd Plants: I didn't even notice that little icon sitting next to the Spotlight icon. It looks similar, but not identical, to the Spaces icon. Very interesting.
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Dean Woodley said 4:13PM on 8-08-2006
I don't understand Apple's brushed metal philosophy here as Safari and the Finder (presuming the "new" finder isn't one of the secret features) have brushed metal but iChat, iTunes, the Spotlight window, iLife, etc. are all without it...
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Micah Acinapura said 4:19PM on 8-08-2006
what is the icon next to the spotlight icon in the dock?
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Pieter Ouwerkerk said 4:25PM on 8-08-2006
I'm looking forward to the RSS support in Mail, because I can't find too many uses for it in Safari. Why look at web pages in RSS when you can look at the real, CSS- and HTML-enabled versions as quickly? ...I only see uses in a third party/or at least external to Safari feed-reader. And of course their cool screen saver.
That's weird about the Mac Pro too. I'm really surprised Apple didn't include Front Row. We all know Mac Pros aren't for the average consumer, but it's strange that they wouldn't include something that would look awesome on one of the only machines Apple sells that support their 30-inch displays... the only explanation (though speculation, sorry) that I can provide would be that iSights and IR recievers will be included in future Cinema Displays. That would also explain the quiet drop in price.
Do you think that the displays will include an iSight and an IR receiver?
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Pete said 4:31PM on 8-08-2006
Hope u'll be able to install only the parts of Mail.app that u want. Graham's right that it's becoming more and more like Entourage aka bloatware. Don't need an RSS reader in Mail because I've got it in Safari and both are usually open at the same time-redundant. No need for the To Do feature either. Don't we have that in iCal. And isn't iWeb the same thing as Stationary just in email form? More features doesn't necessarily make for better software. Looks like Apple is copying MS in this area
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